Originally posted by Kenny Harmison at 4 is still a joke though - what's he had, two good test matches??

Nope - 4 .

The second innings of the last test against South Africa (4-33), then 9 in a game against Bangladesh at Dhaka (5-35,4-44), the first 2 tests in the current series (2-61, 7-12, 6-61, 1-40) and the current match (3-42 and ????)

In his last 3 tests, he has been man of the match. In his previous game against South Africa, he made the second innings breakthrough which was largely responsible for ensuring that England would tie the rubber (with major contributions from Trescothick and Flintoff, of course).

Sorry. Harmison, at the moment, is a very good bowler indeed - not anything like the shambolic figure who could hardly put one foot in front of another in Australia during that infamous ODI against Sri Lanka.

The joke is on the people who believe THAT image is the true Steve Harmison.

The way he set Chris Gayle up yesterday was absolutely classic. Three short balls, all clobbered, the crowd baying for more, Gayle rocking back to repeat the dose - only it's full of length and the off stump goes for a sit down.

'Sucker' says Harmison.
'Oops' says Crystal.

He's not the finished article by a long way - but he is no longer a tearaway. Sure, there's going to be times when he errs in line and length a la Brett and Shoaib. There's going to be occasions when he's taken apart. Lara might to that today - he's certainly due - but England have now, finally, got a strike bowler worthy of the name.

(mind you, if he doesn't screw up, the duck loses half of his material)

He only took the above 9 wickets in 4 games against the Aussies. I agree - not very good. No tail-enders, note. What was the cream of God's own earth doing getting out to such a poor bowler - and so often?